The present invention relates to bottle caps. More particularly, the present invention relates to an apparatus for sending bottle caps to an elevated remote location.
Polycarbonate bottles are commonly used to store water. Because of their sturdiness, the same bottles are cleaned and reused many times over their lifetimes. Bottle caps are placed on the bottles using machines having a receptacle located above the bottles to be capped.
In order to load the receptacle with caps, an operator may climb up a ladder with a load of caps. Other more sophisticated approaches may use automated conveyors to carry the caps up to the receptacle area.
The problem with these approaches is their relatively slow transportation speed. For instance, carrying a load of caps manually while climbing up a ladder is time consuming, potentially dangerous, and inefficient. The use of a conveyor may be more efficient but its speed is still relatively slow.
Another problem with these approaches is the distance between the supply of bottle caps and the receptacle. It may be very burdensome for an operator to carry a load of caps for a long distance. Although a conveyor may accommodate the distance problem, the construction of a long conveyor can be expensive. In addition, conveyors are usually limited to linear paths and take up a lot of space.
Accordingly, a need exists for a fast and efficient mode of transportation for bottle caps to a remote elevated location.
An apparatus for sending bottle caps to a remote elevated location has a first hopper for temporarily storing bottle caps. The first hopper receives a supply of bottle caps. A feeder has an upper end and a lower end. The upper end of the feeder is coupled with the first hopper to receive bottle caps. A second hopper for receiving bottle caps from the feeder is situated beneath the lower end of the feeder. A tube is coupled to the second hopper to receive the bottle caps. A vacuum pump has an input coupled to the tube and an output for delivering the bottle caps at the remote elevated location.